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		<title>A well-needed vacation &lt;https://y.st./en/weblog/2019/01-January/28.xhtml&gt;</title>
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		<header>
			<h1>A well-needed vacation</h1>
			<p>Day 01423: <time>Monday, 2019 January 28</time></p>
		</header>
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2019/01/28.jpg" alt="Ladder to the top of a bridge" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="vasectomy">
	<h2>Vasectomy</h2>
	<p>
		Wow.
		I managed to get an appointment for the Thursday after the coming one.
		I didn&apos;t think I&apos;d be able to get one so quickly.
		I&apos;m hoping I can get time off from work on such short notice.
		If not, I&apos;ll likely end up working that Friday and Saturday, but have the rest of the requested week off.
		The shift leader I spoke with today thinks the deadline is Wednesday though, so I should be in the clear, having submitted it today before the head manager&apos;s shift.
	</p>
	<p>
		With only a week to go, I felt like I didn&apos;t have time to waste in making last-minute preparations.
		The papers I was given tell me the surgeon wants me to apply a certain product to my scrotum on the day of the surgery before they operate, so if I couldn&apos;t find the product, I might need up to a week for stores to replenish their stock.
		Annoyingly, the papers call the product by its brand name, not its actual name, so I had no idea what that product was.
		It was some brand I&apos;d never heard of before.
		So I asked about it when making the appointment.
		The receptionist told me it&apos;s a surgical-grade antiseptic to use instead of some iodine treatment that I forget.
		They also said it was available at the local big box store, and that they&apos;d gotten it there before.
	</p>
	<p>
		I don&apos;t exactly like funding the big box store, so I tried getting it at a smaller department store.
		They were out of stock.
		Not knowing where else in town might carry it, I begrudgingly paid a visit to the big box store.
		I found they were out of it too, but the employee that helped my find where it should be went to talk to the pharmacist to see if there was some generic version.
		The pharmacist said no over-the-counter replacement was available.
		I don&apos;t know if that means they don&apos;t sell the over-the-counter substitute at that location or if they were making the claim that no over-the-counter off-brand version even exists.
		Either way, they didn&apos;t have it in.
		But the employee recommended I try the pharmacy store, and that gave me the idea to try stores with pharmacies in them.
		I&apos;m not really a fan of the pharmacy store they recommended, but there&apos;s another store I pay a visit to every week that happens to have a pharmacy in the back.
		There, I couldn&apos;t locate the product on the shelves myself, but the pharmacist knew where to look for it.
		Being a name-brand product, it was a bit expensive, but it&apos;ll be worth it by far to have this procedure over and done with.
	</p>
	<p>
		My bedroom is locked, but I keep my calendar on the wall in the entryway.
		I baited my mother last night by putting something I knew she&apos;d recognise as meant for her on my entryway table before I left for work.
		It was something she&apos;d asked me about recently, and that I obviously had no use for myself, but something small that she&apos;d not likely notice if not looking over stuff.
		I wanted to see if she&apos;s looking at my stuff when she comes over.
		I didn&apos;t expect her to drop by that night, but when I got home, they were missing.
		So yeah, she&apos;s probably going to see the intentionally-vague word &quot;surgery&quot; on my calendar and ask about it.
		This will be my change to harp on her about misgendering me.
		I&apos;ll tell her that if she can&apos;t even accept me for who and what I am, my surgeries are none of her business.
		And because she has a history of making promises she has no intention of keeping just to get her way, she&apos;ll have to avoid misgendering me for an entire year before she gets to learn what fixes I&apos;m making my my body.
		(Planned so far, that&apos;ll just be the vasectomy, the hair-removal, and the voice fix.
		I might get some facial reconstruction later, but for now, that&apos;s looking unnecessary.)
	</p>
</section>
<section id="repairs">
	<h2>Repairs</h2>
	<p>
		When I moved in, one of the shelves in the pantry was literally supported with duct tape in one corner.
		Needless to say, that didn&apos;t last very long when I started using that shelf.
		I ended up having to give up using that shelf, planning to actually fix it later, but even without any more use, one of the flimsy, plastic brackets in another corner gave out, and the shelf fell.
		The shelf has been sitting on its end on the shelf below ever since.
		Last night, I finally got the screws needed to perform a proper repair, and got one of the corners fixed.
		And today, after my errand, I got the other corner fixed.
		Finally, I&apos;ve got a working shelf there again.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="work">
	<h2>Work</h2>
	<p>
		Not bothering to up-sell today, in the aftermath of yesterday, I found I was so much more relaxed than normal.
		I guess trying to shove extra products down customers&apos; throats, knowing full well I hate it when salespeople do that to me, is a lot more stressful than I&apos;d realised.
		I didn&apos;t even need my doodling to keep me feeling pretty well, which is good, and I&apos;ve decided to leave my pens at home during this protest.
		Furthermore though, I got a lot more tips than usual.
		I&apos;d forgotten how much my tip count dropped when I started up-selling really heavily.
		I&apos;m not the only person that hates that kind of behaviour.
		If the head manager is too cowardly to tell off customers when they&apos;re being obnoxious for no reason, and would rather rip me a new one even when they know I&apos;m doing the right thing, I don&apos;t see why I should bend over backwards to help them keep sales high.
		If they&apos;re going to pile on extra unnecessary stress, I&apos;ll remove theoretically-reasonable stress in the ways I can to make up for it.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="religion">
	<h2>Religion</h2>
	<p>
		Reading the next chapter of the Book of Mormon, we see that Yahweh expects people to believe in his plans without proof of his existence.
		When people do go along with this, he&apos;ll sometimes grace them with conversation, proving that he exists.
		But only proving that to people that already believe.
		And also, he does it via dreams, so it doesn&apos;t even provide actual proof, as dreams aren&apos;t real.
		On the other hand, rational people that don&apos;t believe in deities that cannot be proved to exist instead get cursed by Yahweh.
		That&apos;s literally what the book said.
		The two siblings that didn&apos;t believe were said to be cursed by Yahweh, while the one that did and prayed frequently was promised a great land.
		The fourth sibling didn&apos;t believe at first, but got convinced by the sibling that did believe, so didn&apos;t get a promised land but also didn&apos;t get a curse.
		It&apos;s &quot;follow me without knowing for sure I exist or you&apos;ll suffer&quot;.
	</p>
	<p>
		In the chapter after that, Yahweh sends all four siblings to reclaim the record of their lineage.
		I&apos;m not sure why this record was necessary, but maybe we&apos;ll find out in a later chapter.
		In any case, the siblings try to get the record, but the person that owns it doesn&apos;t want to give it up.
		They try offering that person everything of value they own, but the owner instead drives them off, attempting to kill them, so they can take the valuables without coughing up the record.
		The faithful sibling doesn&apos;t give up, but the other siblings do and beat them with a rod.
		An angel intervenes, telling them Yahweh will put the record-holder into their custody.
		They don&apos;t believe this, wondering how such a strong person can be defeated.
		Um.
		Because Yahweh?
		I mean, there&apos;s no proof Yahweh exists in the real world, but in this story, an angel just spoke to them.
		At this point, I think they believe.
		And Yahweh is supposedly all-powerful.
		Even if he&apos;s not quite all-powerful, he&apos;s probably a lot more powerful than any one human.
		Once you have proof of his existence, why are you doubting that he&apos;ll perform such a trivial task?
	</p>
</section>
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